For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 26, 2001

Presidential Message on Yom Kippur
Yom Kippur, 5762

The kindness of the Lord has not ended,
His mercies are not spent.
Lamentations 3:22

Yom Kippur is a day of holy awe -- and a day of awesome hope.  It is the day, Judaism teaches, on which God judges the world -- and the day when humanity rediscovers the power of God’s love and forgiveness.  The Jewish tradition holds that all humans sin, but that atonement, prayer, and charity can avert God’s decree.

This is a year in which we were stunned by humanity’s capacity for cruelty and violence.  It is a year in which we were astonished by humanity’s capacity for compassion and self-sacrifice.  We have endured great loss. We have suffered great wrong.

May God bring peace to all who mourn.  May people of Jewish faith and heritage in this country and around the world be inscribed and sealed for a good year in the book of life.  And may we be blessed with the strength and patience to pursue justice and defeat evil.

                              GEORGE W. BUSH

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